Method and means for feeding long blanks



March3l. 1925. I 1531 4-93 W. B. PEIRCE METHOD AND MEANS FOR FEEDING LONG BLANKS Filed Oct. 19, 1922 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 HHIIM.

March 31. 1 925. 1,531,498

w. B. PEIRCE METHOD AND MEANS FOR FEEDING LONG BLANKS Filodflct. 19, 1922 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Patented Mar. 31 1925.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

WILLIAM B PEIRCE, OF, NORTH IO'NAWANDA, NEW YORK, ASSIGNOB. T0 GRAH M 130m & NUT COMPANY, A CORPORATION OF PENNSYLVANIA.

METHOD AND MEANS FOR FEEDING LONG BLANKS.

Application filed October 19, 1922. Serial NO. 595,484.

To all whom/it may concern:

Be it known that I, VVILIJAM B. P12111012,

a citizen of the United States, and resident of North Tonawanda, in the county of Niagara and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Methods and Means for Feeding Long Blanks, of which the following is a specification.

My present invention involves another and somewhat different application of the principles set forth in my application Serial Number 563,748, filed May 26, 1922. The particular purpose in View is utilizing metal blanks, usually iron, either as long bars or as rods, which are commonly obtainable in the market in bundle coils which are the product of rod rolling mills. The specific purpose in view is maintaining a continuous supply ofblank material for auto matic machines, such as spike, screw, bolt or not forging machines.

An important feature of the method is back-forth bending of the material to form suitable spaced lengths extending transversely to the direction of the feed, the lengths being preferably parallel with each other and substantially in the same plane. Thus the material is compactly disposed in r a single horizontal layer, the thickness of which need be no greater than the thickness of the rod. The material may be then drawn oli', straightened and forged, all witlr out putting in or taking out any longitudinal twist. The fibre will remain the same as in the original rod, and where rods or bars of rectangular or other non-circular cross section are employed, as for instance fiat bars for nut forging machines or square bars or rods for nail and spike making machines,.the heated blank will go into the forging machine flat, without any twist.

In said prior application the compact arrangement afforded by the reverse bend- 'ing was utilized primarily for the purpose of heating the material to forging temperature in a reverberatory furnace of relatively small size. Such application of the method is particularly advantageous because the vantages which may or may not be utilized in connection with the furnace of my prior application.

One broad purpose of the reverse bending method, which I utilize in the present case, is to maintain a substantial amount of slack material, in orderly'non-twist formation, between the forging machine and the source of supply, so that one of the elements, either the forging machine or the supplying mechanism, can be slowed-up or stopped for a short period, without interfering with the operation of the other element or elements. In the present case the primary object is to get time and opp-ortunityfor welding to the rear end of each successive coil or bar the front end of a new coil or bar without stopping the forging machine.

I have found that in practice this is such an important advantge as to be well worth the expense involved in reverse bending and then re-straighten the material. For c-old forging machines it saves the time and labor of entering a new bar or coil every time one bar and coil has been used up; it saves waste of a mutilated forging at each end of the bar or coil, and it saves forging tools and dies which are most apt to break when operating on a stub end which is insufficient to fill the die.

It is of even greater advantage in cases where the material is electrically heated by passing current through it. In such case, the material is drawn through clamps which must be spaced apart a predetermined distance dependent on the rate of consumption by the forging machine and on the time that the current must flow through the metal in order to heat it to the proper temperature. In such case th advantages are the rear clamp.

the saving of time and labor of I re-entering a new bar or coil in the heating clamps,

.waiting for the new length to become'heated, cutting ed the front end which can not be heated adequately, and re-entering the heated end in the forging machine; also there is a large loss of the tail end ofeach blank which is inadequately heatedbecause the heating circuit is broken as soon as the rear end of the blank passes reciprocating means may be employed for laying andbending the material upon the rotary mandrelythe latter being rotated step by step as the lengths are laid. Preferably stationary inclined surfaces or cams are arranged to automatically strip the bent material from the rotor and guide it away.

Where the material is restraightened cold,

as in the method selected for illustration herein, suitable guides are provided for the reversely bent material, preferably covering both sides of the lengths of'material for a considerable distance inwardly from the bends, and these guides may be less than twice and preferably less than one and one-- half times the thickness of the material to be guided thereby. This is in order to prevent -overlapping, entanglement and locking ofsuccessive reverse bends either by the forced feed from the rear or by the traction stresses from the front end. In the case of thick material, straightened cold, these stresses may be considerable and may afi'ord considerable twisting resultants, so the guides are providedto keep the material confined as against the ping efforts.

The above and other features of my inseveral twisting and overlapvention may be more fully understood from 'Fig. 2.

the following detailed description in connection with the accompanying drawings, m

which- I v 1 Fig. 1 is a top plan view indicating more or less diagrammatically apparatus which' may be used for practice of the method.

Fig. 2 is a side elevation partly in section on the line 2-2, Fig. 1. P

.Fig. 3- is an elevation looking in the direction of the arrows and on the line 33,

While the practice of the primary 'essen 'tials of the method require only'the rod or bar material, means for keeping a supply of to the automatic forging machine E. Prefe erably also there is in advance of the feed mechanism A, any desired welding and shaping mechanism, as diagrammatically indicated at F.

The machine E may be a cold forging machine .but an important advantage of the invention is its special adaptability for use in combination with I electrical heating means as diagrammatically indicated at G.

The forming means 13 includes a rotor which, inthis case, takes the form of heavy wheel-like members 35, 36, fixed on shaft 37 which is rotatably' mounted in bearings 38. 35 has a series of stud projections with rollers 39, 39, projecting radially somewhat like the teeth on sprocket wheels. 36 has an equal number of similar projections 40, but

* the bent material in orderly arrangement, a 1

they. are located opposite -point s'midway between the corresponding projections 39, 39,

on the other wheel 35. The size of the stud rollers is preferably determined by the radius of curvature required for the bends of the rod, said rollers beingpreferably utilized as mandrels around which the rod is bent. In practice the diameter of the man- This, of course, requires that the axes of the rollers be distant from each other a distance equal to two diameters of the roller plus two'diameters of the rod material. ously, however, exact parallelism of successive rod lengths is not necessary. Sharp bending is undesirableexcept in so far as it permits more rod-lengths per unit length in the direction of the feed. Where economy of space is. not important the radius of the bends may be as great as desired and the straight portions'between bends may be reduced even to the point where the bent blank consists merely of reverse curves. These curves, of course, need not be arcs of circles,

though, other things being equal, the circle is desirable as giving the greatest angular change of direction with the least stress on the fibre of the metal.

1 The rod material may be laid on and bent Obviupon the rotor, giving the metal a set in the shape shown,-by hand or with the assistanceof hammers, dies or forming tools. For the purpose of illustration I show a trausversel sliding element adapted to apply and shape the rod material automatically. It consists of support 50 reciprocated on bed 51 by link 52 driven from any suitable source of power. Support 50 carries a standard 53 having a rear opening 54 for passage of rod material drawn from the idle drum or reel 55 rotatably mounted on vertical stud-56 on standard 57. The rod material is threaded through said opening 54, whence it passes through a guide-opening 58 in a projection 59, the path of reciprocation of which is within the circle of to tation of the outer ends of the mandrel projections 39, 40. The throw of slide 50 is such as to bring 58, 59, endwise beyond 35 and 36 at each end of its travel. hen the guide element 59 is thus beyond the end of the forming rotor the latter is rotated one step so that the return movement carries the rod material below the mandrel projection already engaged and above the next cooperating roller at the other end.

This step by step movement with proper timing is caused by a double acting cam projection 60 on slide 61 which has a lost motion engagement with slide 50 through the medium of slot 2 and lug 63, as shown in Fig. 3. The slot 62 is enough longer thanlug G3 to permit cam 60 lagging behind slide 50 until the latter can pass the mandrel rollers in both directions of travel.

In-the position shown in Fig. 3, the lug 63 has engaged the end of slot 62 and further movement in the direction of the arrow will move cam 60 into engagement with mandrel roller 40, thereby rotating 36 through. an angle measured by the height of the cam and this distance is such that. the return movement of slide 50 will carry the rod material below the'-roller, the upper side of which is already engaged by the rod material, on the return stroke, the cam 60 will lag behind in the opposite direction until lug 63 is in the other end of the slot and in position to give another step feed by operation on a stud roller of wheel 35. At the beginning of each return stroke, while the material is being bent about the mandrel rollers 39, the cam 60 is at rest in position to act as looking dog to hold the rotor against rotation.

It'will be noted that in the form shown there should be very considerable friction of the rod material where it passes through guide hole 58, in order in the zig-zag form on the mandrel rollers. Obviously the parts will be designed to afford the dra required for this purpose and auxiliary forming or bending or guiding mechanism or rollers may be employed in this connection. Preferably stationary guides 66, 67, are arranged above the tops of the rollers 39, 40, to prevent accidental displacement of the bent rod material.

form of a wholly closed flat chamber with to p1'operly? straighten tension and set the rod materialv Any other desired indexing mechanism may be employed for rotating and locking the rotating mandrel in proper synchronisr'n with the strokes of rod laying and bending member 53.

Stationary inclined guides are arranger to strip the bent rod material from the mandrel. These stripping guides lead to the storage guide C. This may be in the part or all of the top removable but as shown the central portion C is cut away to permit access for manipulating the bent material as for starting it through the straightening rolls D. The guides are preferably straight for a distance necessary to accommodate the surplus bent material which it is desired to accumulate and maintain. narrowed longitudinally as at 71, 71, the internal curvature being such as to permit the pivotal unbending of the successive lengths without tendency to jam.

The straightening mechanism D may be of any known or desired construction, diagrammatically indicated as comprising draft rolls 72, 72, geared together and driven in any suitable manner as by sprocket chain 73; two pairs of straightening rolls 7 4. 7 75, 75; and preferably also a pair of idle anti-friction rolls 76, 7G.

The draft rolls 72, may be the feeding-in rolls of the automatic forging machine, as where the latter is a cold forging machine. In the preferred arrangement shown herein, however, the for ing machine E has other draft rolls 7 7, 7t, gcaredtogether and re'straightened material is to be heated between the straightening rolls and the forgingmachine. Such heating means is diagrammatically indicated at G, as comprising an electrical generator 80, of atypc' adapted to supply currents for heating the rod material by flow of the current through the metal of the rod. In the arrangement shown there are terminals comprising two pairs of clamping guides 81, 82, having sliding engagementwith the rod material and each pair connected in the circuit so that the current passes serially through the metal of that part of the rod extending be tween said guides. Elongation of the rod material by the heat may be taken care of in various ways, as by permitting slip or by driving rolls 77 faster thanrolls 72.

The speed of feed rolls 72 and 77, the distance between the terminals and the voltage and quantity of the heating current are adjusted or predeterminedwith reference to the cross-section of the blank. material and chine, so that the materialwill be heated to the desired forging temperature.

the rate of consumption by the forging co the bent The means at F for Welding the front end of a new coil to the rear end of one which is exhausted is diagrammatically indicated as. including clamps 84:, 85, forming terminals of a suitable heating circuit 86.

Means for making such end welds and for reshaping the bulged material to uniform cross section are well known in the art. a

- Operation of the apparatus for practicing the method may be'as follows. A bundle coil of rod material is deposited on the supply reel or drum 55 and threaded through the reciprocating device 58 which bends and lays the materialon the mandrel rollers 39,

The material thus reversely bent is carried rearward by rotation of the mandrel as above described. is stripped off by the stripping guides 70 and slides into the storage guide C' whence it'is drawn through the straightening rolls, through the electric heater (if'used,) and the rolls 77 feed it to the forging machine E.

A suflicient supply of the bent material is accumulated in storage guide C so that when .25 the end of the coil is reached, the bending machine may be stopped long enough to supply a new bundle coil on supply drum 55 and to weld the front end thereof to the rear end of the rod that has been drawn 0 off. Thereupon'the bending mechanism may be restarted and operated atspeed su'fiicient to re-accumulate an adequate supply of bent material-in the storage guides against the time when it becomes necessary to again stop the bending machine to Weld on a new coil.

Straight bars may be used in place of bundle coils provided the bars are long enough and the rate of consumption of ma- 40 terial in the forging machine is slow enough to permit accumulation of a suflicient supply of reversely bent material to take care of the consumption by the forging machine uring stoppage for rewelding the succes- 5 sive bars.

The above method could be practiced with rectangular bars for the. manufacture of flat stampings and drop forgings of large size. say one-half inch by two and one-half 50. inches by twelve inches, the reverse bending without twist, and restraightening being 5 the m unt of reversely bent material th "'f a the g machine during the welding operation 2 would be about eleven trans verse lengths, or

between the supply reel and the forming mandrel B, the length of the storage guides,

as well as the lengths and locations of the straightening mechanism D and the electric heating appliances G, may be varied within wide limits to suit special conditions. The widths of the guides and thevlengths of the material between bends may also be varied to suit any given condition.

As shown-in the drawingsthe progress of the bent material through the guides is solely push from the forming mandrel at one end and pull from the draft rolls at the other end but it will 'be obvious that intermediate feed mechanism may be employed if desired, as for instance, that shown in my above-mentioned prior application.

' From the above it will be evident that one broad purpose of my reverse bending method is to maintain a desired amount of slack material in orderly non-twist formation between the source of supply and the;

apparatus to be supplied (heater, for ing machine, or other, as the case may be so that one of the elements, either the supply, the machine to be supplied, or a portion of the slack material between them, can be slowed up or stopped for a predetermined period, without interfering with the continued operation of the other element or elements. It is only necessary that the supply and the consumption average out the same for a predetermined period, the limit of variation of the rates being, of course, dependent on the supply of the slack which is maintained.

I claim:

1. The method of preparing long blank material to maintain a slack supply for consumption at a desired rate which method consists in bending the blank reversely, at intervals, to form transverse lengths, serially connected at the ends. v

2. The method of preparing lengths of rod or bar material-for supply to anauto-i matic machine which method consists in bending the material laterally to provide in advance of the machine a supply of slack material in orderly non-'twistf'formation.

3. The method. of preparing lengths of rod or bar material for supply to an automatic machine which method consistsin bending the material laterally to provide. in advance of-the machine a supply of slack material in lorderly non-twist formation; and holding stationary the successive rear ends of the bent rod or bar material while welding thereto an additional length of material.

4. The method of preparing'lengths of rodor bar material for suppmo an automatic machine which method consists in bending the material reversely at intervals without twisting it to form lengths serially connected at the ends and lying approximately 1n the same plane, thus maintaining in advance of said machine a supply of slack material in orderly formation and thereby rendering independent, within limits, the rate of supply of the material with respect to the rate of consumption by the machine.

5. The method of preparing lengths of rod or bar material for supply to an automatic machine which method consists in bending the material reversely at intervals without twisting it to form lengths serially connected at the ends and lying approximatcly in the same plan-e, thus maintaining in advance of said machine a supply of slack material in orderly formation and thereby rendering independent, withinlimits, the

rate of supply of the material with respect to the rate of consumption 'by the machine;

' and holding stationary the successive rear ends of the bent rod or bar material while welding thereto an additional length of material. o

6. The method of maintaining a continuous supply of rod or bar material for the feed mechanism of an automatic forging machine, which method consists in supplying said material in separate lengths, each sulficient to supply the machine for a period greater than required to end-weld successive lengths; transversely bending each length being drawn, upon by the feed mechanism, to establish a slack supply free to be drawn determined slack supply of said cold material, progressively re-straightening the coldbent material, heating there-straightened material to desired working temperatureby passing electric current through progressing predetermined lengths thereof, inter niitting the bending process to weld the front end of a new rod coil to the rear end of one that has been exhausted.

9. The method of claim 8, and the further features that the accumulated surplus of reversely bent rod material, the length of restraightened rod being subjected to the electrical heating process and the heating current therefor. are adjusted to the cross-section and consumption rate of the material and to the time required for the end-welding of successive rod coils for the purpose and with the result that rod material at the desired heat iscontinuously supplied throughout all variations of rate of reverse bending and during the end-welding intervals.

10. The method of maintaining a continuous supply of rod or bar material for consumption at a predetermined rate, which method consists in 'bending the rod or bar reversely without twist to form seriallyconnected reverse U-bends atrates and for times sufiieient to normally maintain a predetermined slack supply of said material; progressively re-straightening the bent material while preventing twist thereof: heating the rte-straightened material to desired working temperature by passing electric current through progressing predetermined lengths thereof, intermitting the bending into said feed mechanism at the predeterprocess to weld the front end of a new rod mined rate of consumption in the automatic forging machine, by merely straightening the bent portions; holding' stationary the rear end of each length and end-welding thereto a succeeding length, while said slack supply is being thus drawn upon by straightening its bent portions.

7. The method of forming long blanks and maintaining a slack supply thereof, which consists in progressively'bending a rod or bar back and forth successively around suitably spaced and sized mandrel projections; stripping the bent material therefrom; accumulating a desired surplus supply of the reversely bent material; proor bar to the rear end of one that has been exhausted.

11. The method of maintaining a continuous supply of rod or bar material which method consists in bending the ro'd or bar reversely without twist to form serially conneeted reverse U-bends at rates and for times sufficient to normally maintain a predetermined slaek supply of said material; progressively re-straightening the bent material while preventing twist thereof? and intermittingthe bending process to weld the front end of a new rod or bar to the rear end 1 of one that has been exhausted.

12. Means for reversely bending rod or bar material without twisting it; guides for maintaining a predetermined slack supply of the reversely bent material in orderly re- 1 lation, formed so as to prevent twist thereof .under straightening traction upon the forward end thereof; re-straightening mechanism in receiving relation to said guides; in combination with continuously operating means for utilizing the supply of the restraightening material.

13. Means for reversely bending rod or maintaining a predetermined slack supply of -bar material without twisting it; guides for v the reversely bent material in orderly relarial to heat it and an automatic machine for tion, formed so as to prevent twist thereof operating on the heated material. under straightening traction upon the for-' Signed at Coraopolis, in the county of 10 Ward end thereof; re-straightening mecha- Allegheny and State of Pennsylvania this 5 nism in receifing relation to said guides; in 16th day of October, A. D. 1922.

combination with meansfor passing electric current through the re-straightened mate- WILLIAM B. PEIRCE. 

